


Years and Years

by KyeAbove



Series: Monstra [5]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Angst, Blood, Henry Never Made It Out The Studio Alive, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 18:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13642059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyeAbove/pseuds/KyeAbove
Summary: They say Linda was happier an apparent widow, and that her estranged husband was better off dead when it came to her.At her funeral, her family can only wonder. But less about her, and more about the man long dead.





	Years and Years

Linda Bendtsen died peacefully in her sleep. She had been found by a boyfriend, who only meant to bring her flowers. It was of course a somber affair but most already said their goodbyes long ago. She’d cut herself off from most of her loved ones and others had long since passed.

It was the boyfriend who planned the funeral, and what was left of her loved ones received the news in a letter, and only half bothered to make the trip. Very little of the church pews were filled, and even those there looked reluctant to be. It was less that they never loved her, more that she never dared to love them back. 

Her only son sat in the farthest back, avoiding eyes and the few mournful comments there were. Felix almost didn't show up, since he had a busy life. One she had never really been apart of, and it didn't seem right to spare it to her now. In a way, Felix was only here for his father.

His father was who he would always mourn, never her. Here now, he was saying goodbye to Linda for Henry, who never would have a chance, as his grave has long since been dug, most likely by his own accord. 

His father had been gone 20 years, and it never got easier. But he moved on with his life all the same, just like he would with his mother gone too. Not that there was much to move on to. Felix was quite comfortable where he was. Recently divorced, yes, but it had better for both of them. 

One of the products of that old marriage sat beside him, a young man just short of adulthood, holding the last attempt to save the marriage, a little girl who had yet to talk. 

Neither of them had ever met their grandmother, so while Jen would already have the excuse of being too young, it was understandable Leon would be as stone faced as Felix was. Leon didn’t just give his heart to anyone either, so there were no tears from him.

Felix didn't talk about either of his parents all that much, and had never uttered their names around Jen, and most likely never said them to his son since Leon was the same age. They were all strangers here, only connected by a man who never expected to live past forty, now almost in his fifties. 

Maybe it was because he didn’t want to burden them with what he felt, or maybe Felix didn’t want his questions on their mind. 

They stayed silent throughout the service, no one shedding a tear or a prayer. Maybe Linda deserved more, but she hadn’t made much of an effort to earn them. 

Felix broke his silence only when he laid eyes on the gravestone the boyfriend had chosen. 

“Loving woman? I have forty-nine years to count otherwise.” Felix complained with a scoff. Many nods came from the other funeral goers. While Leon finally had a question forming on his lips, he kept them shut until they were all sitting on the church steps, waiting for the cab to arrive.

“Why do you hate your mother so much?” 

Felix looked quite lost in that moment. 

“Leon, I _loved_ my mother. But...she loathed me, and not just because I sometimes lack two brain cells to rub together. Also, not why I left your mother.” Felix smirked a little at that. “I don’t think she knew. She wouldn’t know about...him. Couldn’t say whether she would have approved.”

“I would have been nice if she did.” Leon said, trying to form a conversation, but Felix just looked disinterested in the whole thing. The whole thing might have been dropped, had some kind of life returned to Felix eyes. 

“Now that I think about it, she probably wouldn’t have approved. She got all funny when my father talked about an old friend of his, and he didn’t talk about that friend like a friend. More…” Felix stopped, only now looking for witnesses. Finding none, he finished. “Me when I talk about my boyfriend, and try to hide that we’re together.”

“Oh, was your dad gay too?” 

“More probably bi. I certainly think he had a thing for that man.” The bitterness in Felix’s voice temporarily stopped anymore of Leon’s questions. Clearly a hard spot for him. 

So, Leon put his attention on Jen, who’d fallen asleep in his arms at some point. 

Leon’s questioning only stopped for as long as it took Jen to take ten small breaths in her sleep. 

“What was your father’s name? You’ve never said.”

Felix’s response came much later, almost a minute later. 

“His name was Henry.”

Leon’s next question was immediate. 

“Was Grandpa Henry a good man?” 

“Couldn’t say. I thought he was a decent man up until I was twenty-nine, but once he was gone, he wasn’t there to defend himself.” Felix closed his eyes, and rested his chin on his hand. “Last I saw of him, he wanted to go see his old pal Joey Drew at their old studio, and he never came back. Then, that place burned down, apparently from the inside. They never found any remains.” Felix had traveled to the scene to help in the search, and it still haunted his dreams to this day. “But I really can’t blame them.”

“Why?”

“That place...I bet if we hadn’t stopped digging, we’d still be hitting loose ash, and it’s been twenty years. That place wasn’t natural.”

Was it fitting for Henry’s final resting place to be one of ash and ink? A retired animator who’s leaving caused the same amount of destruction in the lives of those who cared for him as the fire had caused the studio. 

“Don’t think too much about it.” 

Leon would actually have questioned more, and Felix saw it in his eyes, but their cab arrived, saving him from placing fear in his son’s eyes. 

He’d take what he saw to his grave. How he’d been digging, sinking into the ash himself, when something had grabbed his leg and tried pulling him in. Felix had pulled away, helping to pull the thing up out of the ashes. When panic had subsided, he’d hoped to see his father. 

Instead he saw a dripping monster barely holding itself together, but it grinned still so strongly. In one of its dissolving hands, it held Henry’s long black coat. After the thing completely dissolved in front of Felix, as he screamed so loudly and no one came, he’d grabbed the coat, and found it was coated in blood. 

Some still held Henry out as an eventual return, because Felix never shared that stained coat with everyone. The hope their son would one day return had given Felix’s grandparents easy deaths, and maybe the hope had destroyed his mother, and maybe Henry deserved more of a funeral then a few words while Felix burned the coat, but some things were better left unsaid.


End file.
